By FireRescue1 Staff
MISHAWAKA, Ind. — An off-duty firefighter helped a trapped mother save her three young children from their burning home after he happened to be nearby.
WNDU reported that Mishawaka Fire Department firefighter Mark Regina was waiting in the St. Joseph Young Men’s Society parking lot so he could clean their keg taps as part of his part-time job when he smelled smoke.
“I looked through my back window, and I could just see the black smoke rolling off the building behind me,” Regina said.
Regina went to the home and tried to get in through the back stairs, but it was too hot. Things took a turn, however, when he “heard a kid.”
Regina found that the only exit of the building was surrounded by flames, so he helped a trapped woman inside the home open a small window.
“And next thing I turn around, she’s gone, and I’m like where is she? And she comes back with a 1-year-old kid, handing me a 1-year-old kid out the window,” he said. “Turned back around, she’s gone again. I’m like you got to be kidding me, so she comes back and here’s a 4-year-old.”
Regina managed to save the mother and her three children from the burning home before firefighters arrived.
“Thirty years, been on the job 30 years. I’ve never done what I did yesterday. Never had to,” Regina said. “It was the right place at the right time on that one. Somebody wanted me to be there.”
https://twitter.com/MishawakaFIRE/status/984233550953230336